In the disclosure of the present invention reference is mostly made to the treatment of diabetes by injection of insulin, however, this is only an exemplary use of the present invention.
Lack of substantial patient compliance with established dosage intervals has long been recognized as a major problem in treating illness. Typically in treating a patient, a physician will desire the patient to take a needed drug on a specific schedule. The prescribed (or over-the-counter) medicine is usually obtained from a pharmacist, or the doctor himself, with the actual administration of the drug left to the sole control of the patient. However, even a well-meaning and conscientious patient may frequently fail to take medication at the desired dosage intervals. This may be true even if the medication is carried at all times with the patient.
Potential ill effects of lack of compliance with the desired dosage interval may be further compounded if the patient attempts to compensate for missed dosages by taking an increased dose at a later time. Alternatively, the patient may stop taking the medication altogether. Improper dosage may occur whenever the patient has a marginally impaired memory and may not precisely recall taking the medication or correctly judge how much time has elapsed since medicine was last taken.
Patients with diseases, specifically diabetes, which require regular and systematic self managed treatment regimes, are thus facing the challenge of remembering when to take their medication. Since such regimes can prescribe daily to weekly medication, which furthermore have to be personalised to accommodate the routines of the patient, e.g. meal times, working hours etc. Often patients develop individual, home-brewed, systems to remind them to take their medication.
As substantial non-compliance with a desired medication regimen is a major concern, the above problems have been addressed by a number of compliance aid devices which are adapted to provide an alarm or reminder in case a patient does not comply with a programmed schedule for taking a given dose of medicine.
For example, US 2007/0220754 discloses an electronically controlled pill bottle holder which can be programmed by the user to serve as a reminder when the pill bottle is not removed from the apparatus according to the programmed schedule. U.S. Pat. No. 7,170,823 discloses a medical dispenser in which the alarm functionality has been integrated into the dispenser. In a specific embodiment the dispenser is in the form of a pen device for subcutaneous injections of a drug, e.g. a diabetes drug or growth hormone, the pen comprising a main portion with a drug reservoir and a dosing mechanism as well as a cap portion comprising the electronic means for providing the alarm functionality.
WO 99/43283 discloses a pen device which can be programmed with two reminders by actuating a programming button which has to be operated in order to program the reminders.
When properly programmed these devices serve well to remind a patient that it is time to take his or her medication (or confirm that a given dose was taken or not taken), however, for many patients it may be an obstacle to properly program the device for which reason this type of compliance aid is never put in use despite the fact that it may well be very useful for a given patient when the initial difficulties of programming the device have been overcome. Such difficulty is often related to the ability to understand a complex user interface, when attempting to program a personalised reminder scheme.
Having regard to the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide an easy understandable and intuitive reminder programming functionality for an electronically controlled device. It is a further object to provide a user interface and device which can be realized in a simple and cost-effective manner.